Stuff for Cutting Cardboard

My daughter’s class is doing some sort of maker project and the teacher asked for students to bring in stacks of cardboard. To be helpful I grabbed a few shears from my personal makerspace and sent them in. The next day I was looking through a bin of odds and ends and ran into a pumpkin carving kit. I grabbed the saw and checked that it could cut through some cardboard and tweeted out a picture. What started as a simple Tweet about a use for a junk box item turned into a leap down the cardboard cutting rabbit hole.

It is really easy for maker educators to obsess over stuff and lose track of the why of MakerEd/FabLearn. We use cardboard because it is cheap, ubiquitous, forgiving, sustainable. Scissors are a poor tool for the job and box cutters and hobby knives aren’t safe without proper training. Which one you have, isn’t as important as students access to tools that can quickly and safely cut and shape cardboard to make their projects.

Pumpkin carving kit saw

EMT/Medical Shears

Canary Knife

Canary Cardboard Cutting Scissors

MakeDo Safe-Saw

Hacksaw blade with tape handle

Klever Cutter

ZIP Snip

Dremel Moto-Saw

Clauss Corsage Snips

Self-Healing Cutting Mat

Where do you get stuff in Europe?

Have a favorite cardboard resource? Leave a comment or contact me on Twitter.